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Surpassing expectations: Business as usual for AIMS

AIMS Group CEO Chiew Kok Hin calls 2016 a record year for AIMS. “We thought 2015 was a good year, but surprisingly for 2016 we surpassed previous year results.

“We grew in the region of 24-percent. This is more than the industry growth average of 15-percent.”

Chiew attributed this result to good strategic planning and good execution, and even joked it was due to “a supernatural ingredient we have that allowed us to outpace industry so much.”

Chiew Kok Hin

Jokes aside, he frankly added, “It’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time for the right opportunity. All segments we are in, whether carrier and over-the-top (OTT) or enterprise, has grown. We have even secured quite a fair bit of local and global established brand customers.”

The number of customer acquisitions in 2016 contributed at least 14-percent increase to their total list of customers now.

Strength and growth

AIMS’ strategy has been position themselves as the most interconnected data centre.

“The customers we have brought in have further strengthened our position and now we are in leading position. The gap between us and number two is quite big,” Chiew said.

The seeds for regional expansion has also been planted with acquisitions in Thailand and Cambodia. “We have also announced our intention to purchase a telco infrastructure company in Thailand.

“All this will take us further afield regionally,” he commented, adding that it is always AIMS’ ambition to expand overseas.

Industry

Because of effort to push forward on the part of MDEC and MDCA which is Malaysia’s national data centre industry alliance, the Inter-Data Centre (Inter-DC) Network is up and running.

Chiew observed that both parties had the motivation to do it, and AIMS was appointed the contractor to spearhead this project.

This project is meant to address current connectivity challenges and also bring down bandwidth costs via aggregating demand and buying in bulk.

During an earlier media workshop this year, Wan Murdani Wan Mohamad, MDEC’s Director of Digital Enablement, had also described the project as a pilot and expressed his wish to see it replicated in other locations within Malaysia.

For Chiew, the effort brought the industry two steps forward towards its overall goal, and then took one step backwards as well.

“The Inter-DC network is up and ready but no one is promoting it,” Chiew opined as there had been no event to officially launch it, or follow-up roadshows to raise awareness about it.

This lack of follow-through could cost the whole local data centre industry an opportunity to overall expand and grow.

Chiew pointed out, “About 16-percent growth is from three data centres out of the total 24. Perhaps it’s time to buy out (local data centres) if there is a right fit.”